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Astronomical events can still cause the overly religious to go nuts.

There was a Blood Moon a couple of nights ago which you probably heard about because news shows and publications had been talking it up for the better part of a week. If you’re not sure what it is, it’s just a lunar eclipse of a full moon which results in it taking on a reddish tint. Back before science explained exactly what was going on folks tended to take a blood moon as a portent of Very Bad Things About To Happen. Today most folks won’t even notice the event happening and those who do won’t think much of it.

Even the deeply religious won’t be too alarmed by it because it’s known to not be an unusual phenomena. However, when you get 4 of them in rapid (from a cosmological perspective) succession — as we will over this year and next — there are still a few True Believers™ out there who are ready to start predicting Very Bad Things About To Happen:

Recent books capitalizing on the event include “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs” by Washington state author Mark Biltz; “Blood Moons Rising: Bible Prophecy, Israel, and the Four Blood Moons” by Oklahoma pastor Mark Hitchcock; and “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change” by Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee.

Naturally, it’s Hagee’s book that’s attracting the most attention because he’s making the biggest prediction:

This time, Hagee suggests that a Rapture will occur where Christians will be taken to heaven, Israel will go to war in a great battle called Armageddon, and Jesus will return to earth. Hagee planned a special televised event on Tuesday (April 15) on the Global Evangelism Television channel.

Yes, apparently Hagee has learned nothing from the stunning failures of other big Christian leaders making predictions about the end of the world and is declaring the coming blood moons are a sign of the End of the World! Nevermind the fact that this sort of thing has happened previously and isn’t all that uncommon. This time is different! Why? Cause Hagee said so!

“When you see these signs, the Bible says, lift up your head and rejoice, your redemption draweth nigh,” Hagee said in a sermon, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “I believe that the Heavens are God’s billboard, that He has been sending signals to Planet Earth but we just have not been picking them up.”

So the good news is we have until September 28th, 2015 before the apocalypse arrives to give everyone except the truly faithful a really shitty day. The bad news is we’re going to have to listen to Hagee and his ilk hype this shit up for another year and a half.

3 thoughts on “Astronomical events can still cause the overly religious to go nuts.”

Some time ago I had an idea to make a website where all upcoming dates for “end of the world” would be listed with a countdown to the next one. Never managed to actually make it, but I’m pretty sure the list would be really huge and it would feature quite a lot of Christian nutcases.